


Deep Sleep

by Sara_Nublas



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Gen, deep sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-05
Updated: 2011-07-14
Packaged: 2017-10-20 04:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/208537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sara_Nublas/pseuds/Sara_Nublas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sleep is the only moment when our profilers expose their troubles and fears without being able to control them, so I decided to try and dig into their minds to see what’s most frightening or bugging them. There will be one shot for each profiler, all the stories are completely independent from each other and take place in different moments, the only common theme being sleep</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dr Reid and the refuge from eidetic memory

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers to 6x12 Corazon. If you haven’t seen the episode you might have trouble understanding some particulars I refer to..
> 
> Beta'd by the amazing freddlerabbit

Dr. Reid and the refuge from eidetic memory  
Reid comes back home with tired steps, he’s exhausted and there’s an edge of nervousness in his demeanor. A series of sketchy jerks has replaced the usual flow of his movements. His reactions border on the excessive and his weariness is ready to overflow in a matter of seconds. Today Dr Reid is a filled barrel and he doesn’t know how much more he can contain.  
He messily gets rid of his tie and tosses it on the bed, he ruffles his hair and, while he heads to the living room, he instinctively avoids any source of light. He sits on his sofa and gets his shoes off, walking to the kitchen in his mismatched socks; he turns the kettle on and, waiting for the water to boil, painstakingly rubs his eyelids, as if he could send his pain back to the source.  
Right, the mysterious source.  
He lets out a bitter chuckle at the thought of the possible explanations he’s been provided with: a psychosomatic cause or ghosts filling his head. He takes out of his pocket the bracelet that Julio gave him few hours before and plays distractedly with its beads, before wearing it hidden under the cuff of his shirt.  
The highlights of the recent case in Miami are darting through his mind as a series of snapshots he doesn’t seem able to stop.  
The shells covering the eyes and the mouth of the mutilated victims.  
The decapitated dove on the tray.  
The white wooden house with the blue door; the lock of the gate restlessly beating against the frame.  
Julio’s eyes staring at him as if he could read him like an open book.

He takes a few books from the crowded shelves of his living room and soon after, nervously tosses all of them, unopened, on the coffee table. He definitely can’t read tonight, he can’t find rest, his leg fidgeting, his head spinning. He comes to the conclusion he’s not going to catch any sleep, but against his expectations at some point he dozes off.

For Doctor Reid the transition to sleep is a dreamless drift, leading him to a refuge where no sound, image or word can reach. In this dimension he’s safe from memory, his synapses are finally at rest because there’s no stimulus to react to; everything is perfectly still and unquestioned in this never-ending darkness.  
Many would find it scary and would be overwhelmed; the fear would cause an adrenaline rush, inducing panic and over thinking, the breath would be shortened and they would drown in the necessity to explain and rationalize.  
For Dr Reid this faraway, untouchable place is the only shelter from his restless genius. For him salvation comes in the form of a cage.  
He doesn’t really know what’s in this dimension, he doesn’t recall what happens when he gets to this silent oasis; after all how can you remember… ‘nothing’?  
The simplest approach to assess the status of a conventional system is to adopt a binary code, a sequence of ones and zeros to record presence and absence, based on the comparison to a standard situation. But in this secluded corner of his mind there is no such thing as absence or presence, there is no standard, thus there is no deviation from the standard. In this corner there’s only the unchanged stillness of an infinite waveless sea.  
Reid doesn’t know how he gets to this state of bliss; he just notices that sometimes at morning he wakes up unusually well rested and he can’t remember any particular dream. There’s a gap in the tissue of time, a hole in the sequence of events that led him here; for a while he feels calm and relieved, he doesn’t even realize that his headache is temporarily gone and that the light filtering through the windows does not hurt his sensitive irises.  
Then a cascade of details assails him from every angle, his mind processing all of them at first and then filtering them according to priority.  
He looks at an article in a journal he left opened on the counter top days ago, and slightly smiles at an inner joke as an association of thoughts arises in his mind; he’s not gonna share it with anyone, probably nobody would understand it. These thoughts are not moved by arrogance or frustration, just an assessment of the reality he got used to over the years. Finally now being exceptional, to a certain extent, is not a cause of loneliness or torment; he’s got a family who loves and appreciates him, exactly the way he is.  
He leaves the house, his energy recharged and his memory refreshed, ready to delve into the deviation of a sick mind, until he borders the edge of oblivion again.


	2. Hotch: Two Doors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by freddlerabbit.  
> No real spoilers, just taking place after '100'

Hotch tucks Jack’s blankets and observes his son’s chest regularly raising, his lips slightly curled upward in a hint of a smile. He silently tip toes out of the room and walks toward his own bedroom; as he does on most of the nights he stops halfway and, after a brief reflection, he veers toward the living room where the open laptop and a pile of files he brought home from work are sitting on the table. Stoically he sits down and without a frown he starts examining them, one by one, as the clock hands go by. He takes great care to examine each case and regularly he peeks at the thinning pile on one side as he dreads the moment it’ll be over, because then he won’t have any more excuses to put off his sleep.   
He ignores the cues his body gives him, the increasing heaviness of his limbs, the sore eyes, the occasional yawn he doesn’t manage to repress.   
A detective from Wichita believes there’s a serial killer targeting young women in his city…. He fumbles through the pages and his brain haphazardly stores the last cluster of information before giving in; his head cocks to one side and he dozes off.  
He just has the time to note with disappointment that he’ll be faced with the same torture all over again, but he can’t fight his weariness anymore.

As he falls into slumber, Hotch comes across two doors in an empty, dim room. He already knows what’s behind both of them, it’s not a matter of choice here. It’s just a moment of torment his own guilt tailored specially to him.  
He’s been in this place many times already. He knows that if he crosses the first door, he’ll find out that in this universe he accepted a desk job, to Haley’s much pleasure. He comes back home regularly every night, he’s an ideal father and husband, he opted for a stable life and loves every second of it. He never misses a soccer game of Jack’s, he goes to the park with his wife on Sundays, he joins the barbeques in the neighborhood, he tells bedtime stories to his son, occasionally he does some fixing up at home. Only sometimes he can’t repress that nagging feeling that hitches him when he watches the news, or hears a siren down the road, or when his profiler’s mode gets unwillingly switched on and he starts scanning gestures, frowns, language cues in random people around him. In those moments the awareness that something is missing in his life is as sharp as the blade of a knife and promptly followed by shame for his own arrogance. What more could he possibly wish for in his life?  
Behind the second door instead there’s the known path; in this universe he followed his vocation and stayed at the BAU. He sees Jack whenever he can, though never as often as he would like to. Haley’s doing a great job raising their son; when they’re together, she puts up a smiling face and makes the greatest effort to give the situation a pretense of normality, for Jack’s sake. Hotch knows how hard it is for her and how easy it would be to start with the recriminations against him; he knows she will never understand why, despite loving her and Jack with all his heart, he was never able to make the necessary sacrifice in order to keep his family together. Frankly he doesn’t understand either.

If he carries on, walking through this potential universe, he will face another crossroad. This time the doors leads to a hotel room in Boston. In one of the possibilities he will seal the treacherous deal with the Reaper; when he hears the click at the other side of the line, something crashes in his chest. ‘Nobody needs to know’ he says to himself, while he stares at his hands as if they were blood stained. From this moment on, he will slowly start to die, the following day when he meets his colleagues, they will notice there’s something ominous, burdening his soul but they won’t be able to figure it out. He, on his side, will never be able to look at them or at his family straight in the eyes anymore.   
But they’ll live.  
Behind the other door Hotch is a lonely man who never sacrificed his integrity, and lost a great deal because of it. In this universe Jack will know about his mother only through his dad’s stories and some blurry memories of his own. In this universe Hotch lives for his son and for his job, which he cannot leave yet, despite it having jeopardized almost everything he had. This lonely man faces the horror everyday, he stares into the human stain and delves into it to get hideous answers; he does it without flinching. But at night, when he’s alone with his own thoughts, this brave man is afraid of his own shadow. He loads himself with work and fights against sleep beyond the threshold of exhaustion; unavoidably he loses. His head comes to rest on his hand, his body leans over his desk scattered with pictures of women killed in Wichita, Kansas. He seems sound asleep, but his dreams are restless horror.

He jerks in a mixture of weariness and relief when the alarm clock finally goes off.  
Hotch heavily opens his eyes; his body is sore from the unnatural posture he kept during this brief interval of sleep. He tiredly rubs his eyes and thinks that another cycle of scrutiny is over; then he looks down at the folder and finds himself agreeing with the detective. There’s a serial killer in Wichita.


	3. Morgan: Family Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Minor spoilers to 6x23 Big Sea, (only reference to the location, no more)  
> Notes: Beta’d by the amazing freddlerabbit

Morgan lazily opens his eyes as the sun starts setting at the horizon over the sea; as he sits up he feels a mixture of salt and sand on his skin. The air is still warm from this summer day, but the approaching night is bringing along some chill. The beach of Jacksonville is deserted and the waves, regularly breaking on the shore, are the only source of noise.  
He lets his gaze wander over the surface of the sea, which seems made of diamond scales, as the last rays of sun dance in the sky.  
Only then he notices three figures standing on the shoreline, playing gleefully with the wash of the tide, chasing the water as it comes back to its source and running away when a new wave climbs up their legs.  
He can make out only their profiles in the backlight, but he guesses it’s a mother with her two children; for some reason this image gives him a mixed feeling of joy and anguish at the same time.  
The woman lifts her head and stares at him, then she rises a hand in his direction and he responds in kind. All of a sudden everything seems so familiar.   
The woman calls the kids and whispers something in their ears, they turn toward Morgan and start running toward him. He welcomes them with open arms as they run to his embrace with abandon; they’re covered with sand and water, and they can’t stop waggling and giggling. They hug him back, with the complete confidence and trust only children are capable of, because they don’t know there are dangerous things out there.   
A sudden pang of fear darts through his mind; how is he going to protect them?  
This latent anguish is momentarily waved away as the woman sits down beside him and leans close to seal their lips in a kiss.  
For a moment he wonders what is this feeling climbing to the surface of his conscience: confusion, doubt, uncertainty? No, it’s fear. Pure, utter, fear.  
The man who drove an ambulance, carrying a bomb ready to explode, through New York, is now terrified at the prospect of having a family to look after.

His thoughts are stopped by her hand gently running on his cheek. “Don’t worry” she chants smiling, “Everything will be fine. We’ll be fine”  
He believes her, he wants to. But deep down, he knows he can’t.

“What about when you’re away on a case?” another female voice takes him aback.  
He turns and finds Prentiss standing few meters away from him, staring at the horizon.  
“They’ll be with their mother. I’ll call them every night,” he answers, frowning.  
She shrugs “ All right. If you say so…” she responds unusually coldly, her gaze still locked away.  
“What? You don’t think I can do it?” he questions defensively.  
“Haven’t said that” she doesn’t falter, but still won’t look him in the eyes, “What I’m saying is that a family is not a kitten that you can leave to the care of a neighbor.”  
“Prentiss, what the hell are you saying? I told you, the mother is going to be with them” he angrily reacts, he can’t stand her detached, mocking tone. Or maybe he can’t take the truth.  
“The mother will not be there forever,” Hotch offers from another standpoint. He’s staring at the horizon too “I know that, first hand.”  
“Hotch, this doesn’t mean I’m going to lose her” Morgan fights back, but he can feel his certainty slowly crumbling.  
“Maybe she’s not the one who’s leaving.” Reid joins the group and stops right behind Prentiss, his gaze is lost in the distance.  
Morgan is about to answer in kind, when a little hand pushes his T-shirt.  
“Daddy, don’t worry. We’re gonna be fine once you’re gone” The older boy reassures him, his eyes filled with sadness.  
Morgan furrows in confusion, for some reason this sounds like a goodbye. A similar heartbreaking promise, rises from the well of memory; a memory he doesn’t want to associate with this moment, with his family.

Then all of a sudden shots and cries break the quiet. Derek looks around, then searches for support from his colleagues, but they’ve all vanished. He draws his gun and tells his family not to move, then he goes after the shooter, who is running away. He runs. He runs without thinking of anything other than to catch this man, the adrenaline pumping through his veins.   
The sunset and the beach are now miles away. He’s chasing a hooded figure through the poorest outskirts of Chicago; this bleak landscape is familiar to him, he grew up here.  
He finds himself in a deserted alley. It’s a dead end and the shooter is trapped. He turns and Derek can see a young man with a gun, panic and rage in his eyes.   
Morgan is a trained agent; he knows he’s going to be faster. He’s an FBI agent, he knows how to handle stressful situations; but when he sees a child, his child, in the line of fire, he hesitates.   
He doesn’t feel any pain, just a tugging noise as the bullet hits his chest and crushes his lungs. It’s an excruciatingly slow moment, yet everything happens so fast. He grabs his son and shields him, he gets hit and responds to the fire, then his legs give in.   
He checks to see the hooded figure lying lifeless, not far away, a growing red stain spreading on his jumper. Derek feels a pressure on his arm and turns to see his son, holding his hand and promising with brave tears that he’ll take care of his mom and his sister.   
The profiler lets a silent, angry tear run down his cheek; then everything gets blurry.

He wakes up screaming, in a cold sweat. He’s almost relieved when the light of his bedside lamp reveals an empty bed. Nobody to take his bullets, nobody to leave alone.   
Silently he waits until his breath evens out, his head in his hands.   
He asks himself the same old question, ‘Why can’t I have a normal life? Why can’t I bring myself to choose it?’  
Then he distractedly looks at the clock, helpless for an answer and slowly moves toward the shower.


	4. Rossi: Orpheus and Eurydice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: tags to 5x3 “Reckoner”
> 
> Beta’d by the amazing freddlerabbit, thanks a lot for helping with the description of Manhattan.
> 
> A/N: First off, I take for granted some references to the episode. I tried to incorporate them into the narration, but they would sound so clunky and spoil the flow of the story. (I know, it sounds presumptuous to assume that the story flows).

Rossi drops his keys on a table near the entrance door of his apartment; it’s been a hard case.

He doesn’t mind switching on the lights. He heads directly to the sofa, where he plumps down heavily letting his head fall back to rest for a few minutes.

Then, tiredly, he reaches for the bottle on the coffee table in front of him and fills a glass. He has consolidated this fixed routine over the years, every time a case would hit badly.

He lets the scent of the aged alcohol pierce his nostrils; he smells the tar and the wood of barrel where the whiskey aged for 20 years. For some reason, whenever he encounters it, he associates this scent with the image of a solitary, remote cliff in Scotland.

He could move there, he thinks.

Are there unsubs even in Scotland?

If so, it’s not worthy of all the logistical nightmare of moving down there, he resolves quickly.

He takes a deep breath, realizing that his line of thought is nonsensical and inconsequential, but he doesn’t mind. He’s so tired.

 

David Rossi has seen some of the sickest, most aberrant minds. He has explored and analyzed them. He almost flirted with their deviations in order to understand what triggered them and how to predict their next moves. When he began his career, profiling was not even considered a science. They didn’t have private jets or fancy names for their unit and policemen regarded them as mongrels between state employees and charlatans reading the future in their crystal balls. It took a lot of time, and mistakes, to get their trust and to learn how to do this job properly. A lot of lives were saved, a lot were lost.

Many of his colleagues got lost too.

Some lost sleep; they had seen so much evil that they couldn’t find any comfort and beauty around them, unless self-medicating with the bottle.

Others abused their authority, starting to believe that heroes were above the rules and allowed to dictate their new laws.

Some of them became time bombs: keeping their cool on the job and then loosing control with such fury over their beloved ones. They turned into the monsters they wanted their families to be safe from.

Everyone got his scars.

Rossi decided at least to keep his personal hell to himself. He kept his interactions shallow -as shallow as four marriages can be- and every time that matters started becoming intense, he made sure to handle them with a neat and clean cut. He let all the people he really cared for slip away, take other paths, genuinely convinced he was acting in their best interest.

“Arrogant, selfish bastard,” he mutters to himself swallowing a sip of whiskey.

He was convinced he could protect everyone; he believed he could shield people from pain, because he thought he knew better.

Truth is, he didn’t know a damn thing.

 

When David Rossi closes his eyes, he doesn’t see his monsters; those are lingering on his shoulder every single waking hour, when he engages in a relentless inventory of his wrongdoings, of the lessons he learned, of the good and the bad days.

When Dave falls asleep, he slips into an even worse hell. He can touch first hand what he will never be able to have, what is lost forever, what he never actually fought for. Emma.

 

It’s a cold winter evening and a white blanket is covering Manhattan. Even the chaotic, frantic routine of cars, bicycles and people seems to slow down; all the noises are muffled and an entire city tiptoes under a cascade of snowflakes.

Rossi braces himself and enters the hotel; while he walks through the hall, puffs of frozen breath are still coming out of his mouth. He shows his badge to the policemen and walks past the secured perimeter. The CSU has arrived and the detective in charge is already speaking to the other profilers consulting on the case. Rossi keeps quiet, he looks around, taking in details about the scene, the reactions of people passing by, searching for someone hanging around too long, sticking out from the crowd…

All of a sudden he sees her, gliding toward the elevator, an otherworldly creature meant to light up people’s life with just one look. She casts a distracted glance at the cluster of people, police and agents, without slowing her pace or indulging in any voyeurism. Then their eyes meet. She looks away at first, then suddenly recognition darts on her face; she freezes and turns back. She frowns incredulously and then a big, genuine smile appears on her mouth.

David Rossi doesn’t feel cold anymore.

Then reality snaps down an impossible path.

In a moment his ambitions, his job, his vocation seem all idle accessories. He knows all he wants in life is right in front of him, and for some cosmic, uncanny reason she knows it too.

Later that night, holding her in his arms, in a classy hotel room, he promises her they will be happy and she believes him.

They fantasize about living a secluded life in the countryside; away from the horrors they’ve both seen from different standpoints of the justice system.

They’re tired, and need understanding, something pure and untouched. They want to forget who they are and start off a new life away from everything.

The conversation morphs into a childish stream of chatter about their favorite books, the road trips they want to take, their favorite foods. They go on until dawn, when they fall asleep exhausted and blissful, in each other’s arms. Outside, another noisy morning is starting; garbage trucks move heavily down the streets, cabs honk and people put newspapers up to passersby. Dave and Emma don’t care, not today.

 

The first ray of light intrudes through his eyelids. He reluctantly wakes, and takes in the sight of his living room; he’s lying on his sofa, the empty glass still in his hands.

The memory of a six-year-old girl, keeping in her arms a black and white kitten her dad just brought home, bluntly surfaces to his consciousness. He smiles with bitterness, remembering she decided to call him Oscar, after Oscar Wilde.

 

Dave silently sits up. A grimace of pain hits him as he tries to move his neck, sore from the uncomfortable couch.

It’s day now. The fantasy is over and his lover swallowed away in a dark corner of his unconscious.

In honesty he doesn’t know whether to feel grateful or furious for that.

“Sooner or later we all shall pay for what we do” he quotes, while he heads off to prepare a cup of coffee.

 

 _Quote from Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband._   



	5. Prentiss: Believe the Lie

Prentiss: Believe the Lie  
There’s a storm outside and raindrops are heavily pelting Emily’s windows. Violent wind gusts are pounding infuriatingly against some unlocked door, relentlessly beating against its frame in an irritating, irregular rhythm. All of a sudden, a shard of light throws white shadows on the carpet of her bedroom, justly followed by a deafening thunder. After that a suspended silence descends on everything; the rain is just a whisper and she hopes someone has finally secured that door.   
She closes her eyes, ready to embark toward the much-needed sleep, but within a couple of minutes the damn door is slamming again; her face twitches in a nervous grimace as she realizes that the sounds outside are reinforced and stronger than before.   
The heavy raindrops, the beating door, the water loudly splashing out of some broken gutter, they’re all there, performing an unnerving concert much to her distress.   
She tosses and turns in her bed. One moment she’s hot, one moment she’s cold; one moment her blanket has shrunk and leaves her feet exposed, so she adjusts it, but then the pillow gives her a pain in the neck. Exhausted, she remembers of some ear plugs she bought sometime ago and never used; she picks them out of a drawer and wears them.  
Better. The storm is now tenderly humming to her at a much more bearable volume. She thinks this seems a lot like the sound of distant memories. Slow, muffled and faded around the edges.  
She finally relaxes and the last thing she sees is her dress hanging on her door handle and reflecting in a mirror. In a distant place of her mind an observation arises, that they look a lot alike, the real one and the reflection, but they’re not the same thing…

It’s pouring outside and it’s freezing. She’s wet through, soaked to the bone and she’s going to catch a cold unless she finds something dry to put on soon.  
She’s walking alone under the relentless rain; a stranger in a black dress, facing the night in a huge, deserted city. Finally she finds shelter in a tunnel, probably some old water transportation system. She leaves the flooded streets behind and ventures into an underground corridor.  
At regular distances the water is raining down from some circular grates on the ceiling; the dim light filtering through in sieved patterns. The deeper she walks the less light and water there is.   
Here there’s silence and quiet, and she feels less cold.  
She walks into a wide room; near the door there’s a mirror only half exposed to the dim light.   
She proceeds slowly, her heels echoing in the room, until she gets close enough to catch a glimpse of her own reflection. It feels like she’s doing something inappropriate or forbidden, so the closer she gets, the more silent her steps are. She leans forward and takes a look, and she unwillingly takes a sudden step back as she comes face to face with her reflection.   
The woman standing across from her is soaked, her face tired and her features hardened. Her gaze is ruthless, and she’s covered with mud. Mud on her shoes, mud on her legs, on her arms, her hands; her fingers and knuckles are bleeding with cuts and scratches. This woman is hiding a terrible secret, and it’s consuming her. She can’t stand this image, but she can’t even stop looking at it.   
‘Is this me?’ she wonders in disbelief.  
The more she looks at it, the more alien her reflection becomes to her; dirty, evil, miserable.  
As she feels filled with disbelief, sorrow and contempt, the _other woman_ arches an eyebrow, defiant, her lips curled in a vicious smile.   
Emily takes another step back and the _other_ folds her arms on her chest, cocking her head to one side. _She_ ’s challenging her with that mocking expression ‘Really, do you think you can get rid of me that easy?’ It seems _she_ ’s warning.

Emily tries to control her reaction; her chest rising and falling frantically, her feet moving backward. Then when the fear takes over her need to rationalize and understand, she runs like hell.   
She doesn’t know where she’s going, but at some point finds herself out in the open.   
The chill of the night and the freezing rain are lashing her face. She falls on her knees, gasping for air; just then she realizes she’s in a meadow, the soil has been recently turned and she’s covered with mud.   
It’s almost with fear that she reluctantly raises her gaze and freezes, staring at her gravestone. A sudden frenzy gets into her; she has to dig her coffin out, she has to be sure it’s not her, down there. She has to verify that she’s still alive, still the same person, because if she doesn’t believe the lie, then the lie doesn’t exist.   
She’s cold and sore, her hands are full of cuts and scratches and there’s mud everywhere; only then she notices that she’s not alone.  
The _other_ is leaning on a nearby gravestone, looking at her with pity “I feel for you. You know?” she finally speaks, and her own voice coming out of _that thing_ , that is something other than her, feels so true, but also so wrong and creepy.  
“What do you want from me?” Emily hisses out, her voice a raucous, rabid whisper.  
“I just want you to understand and to find peace” the _thing_ carries on calm, almost sweet.  
“To understand what?” she screams with rage against this shadow haunting her.  
“That you are gone. And even if you come back, you won’t be the same anymore.”  
“You don’t know what you’re talking about” Emily growls back.  
“That’s where you’re mistaken” _She_ carries on, with that crooked grin, “You must stop making a fool of yourself. Everybody else accepted it: You. Are. Dead.” _She_ spells the words with great care, and _she_ enjoys the mask of horror they draw on Emily’s face.  
“I’m not dead!” she screams out.

Her words get to her muffled because of the earplugs and, as soon as she realizes it, she takes them off, opens the window and runs out on the balcony under the rain.  
Emily lets the cold night sting her skin like thousands of needles, she lets the rain drops run down her face, her arms, her hands and legs. She grabs the handrail until her knuckles turn white and her fingers ache. If she can feel this, it means that she’s alive, she’s real.   
Eventually she goes back in, exhausted and drained of all energy.   
She stops few steps away from the mirror. It would take just few paces to get close and see who’s right. She falters and bits her lip, hesitatingly. Then moves toward with a resolute gesture and stares at her reflection.   
Drenched, torn, lonely and desperate. Emily Prentiss is really in bad shape and doesn’t know how long she can hold on, but it’s definitely her hanging in there.   
She lets a tear of relief and desperation run down her cheek and tiredly goes back to bed.


	6. Garcia: Madame Noir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: tag to 6x08 ‘Reflections of Desire’   
> Notes: Beta’d by the amazing freddlerabbit

_‘I believe humanity was born from conflict, maybe it’s why in all of us lives a dark side’_

I stop in front of a sign for “The Black Rose” and enter this bar with the resolute walk of a woman who learned how to get respect, but is also able to blend in and go unnoticed when necessary.   
It’s Friday night and the room is lively and crowded; a few waitresses are snaking around clusters of clients, skillfully balancing their loaded trays.   
On the stage dancers are charming the crowd with their sinuous grace, winking at the bewitched men and flirting with the pianist, who tirelessly provides the soundtrack for the night.   
Bartenders are busy fixing drinks and following up new orders.   
The space is filled with smoke and music; so many voices are darting from every corner, that for a moment I don’t know if I will make it; I lean on the marble counter top and take deep breaths.  
Then a familiar voice rises from the crowd, I move my gaze searchingly through the teeming room, but to no avail.   
“Where’s the new girl?” the voice inquires briskly.  
“Right here, boss. I’d hurry up before she passes out” a bartender answers from behind the counter, addressing me with a teasing look.  
Finally the voice gets a face. I smile, comforted; thanks to this man I will accomplish my revenge.   
Dave Rossi moves toward me with a grin, framing me from head to toe, “So, you must be Penelope” he approaches me.  
Rumor has it that this man has a giant ego, but an even bigger heart. If you’re friend to him, you’ll have help and protection granted.   
“Yes, sir...” I respond in a whisper.  
Rossi bursts out laughing, echoed by the bartender and by the other waitresses who overheard the quick exchange “Sir… it’s been a long time since someone called me this, young lady” he explains after regaining speech. Then he takes a step back, brushing his chin with his forefinger and scanning me from head to toe. Finally he resolves, “you’ll go by Penny here, Penelope is too showy for a waitress. Maybe, if and when you get on the stage, we will let you use your full name”  
I smile gratefully. I almost feel guilty for taking advantage of his generosity, but I can’t afford kindness in this situation. Just then I notice how he looks good in his tuxedo; he holds a cigar in one hand and a glass of whiskey in the other, at his sides two beautiful girls. if I didn’t know his true story, I would think he’s some kind of ruthless gangster.  
“There are three rules here:” he warns me “don’t steal from me, don’t get drunk during working hours and make my friends happy. Clear?”  
I nod, refraining my enthusiasm. I’m in.   
Tonight I will accomplish my mission. Tonight I will kill the man who ruined my life.  
“Good. You’re hired” he concludes before disappearing, swallowed by the incoming wave of people.

I’m still gazing in his direction, searching the crowd for the object of my interest, when I feel a hand tapping on my shoulder. It’s Kevin, the awkward bartender; he smiles at me and offers a shot of tequila.   
“Thanks, Kevin” I smile back, accepting the drink.  
“Good girl” he blushes, filling clumsily some other glasses “you remembered my name!” he exclaims in satisfaction, “You’re real lucky, the boss really likes you..” he reassures me.  
“Yeah,” I mumble pensive “ so real lucky”   
“Are you looking for someone?” he asks, noticing I’m scanning the crowd “because if so, I know everybody in here, and I can tell you all their dirty secrets”  
I turn around suddenly interested and with a crooked smile I flirtatiously encourage him “I love secrets…”  
“So, let’s start with our pianist, Spencer Reid. We all call him Spence here,” Kevin nods at the stage where a skinny guy in a suit is playing the piano and winking at the dancers. He explains that this Spence guy is a weird one. Apparently girls go crazy for him, but he doesn’t mind much about them; he doesn’t really mind about anyone. All he’s got in mind is his music and his books. “He’s a funny one, but you’ll like him,” he grants.  
“Then, you see the couple talking and laughing with Rossi?” he redirects my gaze toward a quieter corner, where a tall man and a petit blonde are chatting with the boss.  
“Those two are Mr and Mrs Hotchner” he explains.   
Their hands are intertwined, occasionally they hold each other’s gaze lovingly and share a silent smile.   
Kevin tells me that Aaron is one of Rossi’s wealthiest clients and dearest friends, and his wife, Jennifer Jereau, has French origins and comes from an aristocratic family.  
“Is he an aristocrat too?” I ask curiously pointing at Mr Hotchner.  
“Not at all. He worked his way out of the gutter ”  
“Let me guess, her parents never approved the story” I prompt.   
“Of course” he confirms, “they threatened to cut her out of their will and she married him. But honestly I’ve never seen a happier couple.”  
I am still looking at them dreamingly, agreeing with Kevin’s take, when he points my attention to another client who just walked in. He doesn’t look at anybody, just beckons at Hotchner and Rossi and sits alone at a table in the opposite corner of the bar. I stare at him speechless for a few seconds, he’s one of the most beautiful men I’ve ever seen, but there’s a deep sadness in his eyes that gropes my throat.   
“…And that’s Morgan,” Kevin cuts it short, not hiding his hostility at the obvious interest the man draws from the women in the bar. To his knowledge Morgan is one of Mr Hotchner’s dearest friends. “Apparently Morgan saved his life so many times that the man lost count. They’re like brothers” he explains.  
“Why is he so sad?” I can’t help asking.  
“Nobody knows. He’s a troubled man. Women love that” again that rough edge in his voice, “He comes here late at night, sometimes he disappears for months. But don’t raise your hopes, he’s taken”   
Kevin’s glare veers a bit and I follow it, to glance at the woman who just walked in “ah, speaking of the devil… Emily Prentiss” he announces.  
She walks through the bar with resolute strides and her gaze stands up to every man’s in the room, challenging them all.   
She goes to sit in front of Morgan and smiles coyly, sipping some of his drink.  
“What’s her story?” I ask interested.  
“Miss Emily Prentiss. Unique woman. She’s educated, she travels a lot and she lives alone. Nobody can tell her what to do, or who to be with. Rumor has it that she was previously tied to some Irish guy, involved in illegal smuggling. Bad stuff, the kind you don’t want to ask about.”   
“And how did she end up here?” I urge.  
“Morgan helped her out of that situation. They say that he killed the guy in order to save her… or to have her. Since then they’re often together, always exchanging glances… they like to keep it mysterious”

At that point a new client enters the bar. Kevin is still speaking, but I don’t listen to him anymore.   
I walk toward the man, the one I came here for, the one I’m going to kill.   
He smiles at me and I respond in kind, then when I’m close enough, I speak “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long…”  
He smiles at first, but his grin fades as he sees the gun in my hand. I don’t give him the time to react.  
The trigger clicks so easily under the pressure of my finger.  
Bang!

“Pen… Pen..” someone’s calling me, “Wake up honey, you fell asleep in your office. Everybody’s gone by now. C’mon let’s go home” Kevin shakes my shoulders delicately.  
I take few moments to realize where I am; then I brace myself and answer him “Kev, you would never believe me. I had the weirdest dream ever….I was a killer”   
“Oh boy” he startles, swallowing the surprise.  
“…and you were a barman”  
“Ah” he adjusts his glasses, clearly expecting a nobler role.  
“JJ was married to Hotch and Emily was kinda with Derek, who saved her life,” I carry on.  
“Why does Morgan get to be the hero and I’m just a barman?” he asks disappointed.  
I nudge him lovingly and carry on recounting.   
Walking through the familiar corridors of the bureau, I sigh in relief as I fully realize it was just a vivid dream. Glad to be back to the sunny, innocent, chatty side of me. I hug him and bid this place my goodbye, till tomorrow


	7. JJ: Awakening

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Spoilers to 6x23 'Supply and demand'  
> Notes: Beta’d by the amazing freddlerabbit

JJ rubs her forehead, hunched over her sofa, intent in skimming through the pages of a file.

She’s so caught in her thoughts that she startles when Will comes and sits next to her.

“He’s finally asleep,” he whispers with a relaxed sigh, then he nods to the stash of papers, “I understood that one of the pros of this new job was travelling less and not taking any work home”

She looks at him, her face hinting at an uneasy smile “I know, I’m sorry. It’s just some documents I really needed to take a look at” she justifies and gathers the files.

Will frowns when he spots the content “You going back?” There’s no anger or resentment in his voice, just pure surprise.

JJ’s mouth falls open while she tries to figure out a plausible answer “I’m thinking about it. It’s just an idea.” She dodges his gaze and takes a pause “Will… I was going to tell you. I just wanted to wrap my head around this before saying something”

“I know,” he responds pensively.

JJ arches an eyebrow, trying to understand if his calm is real or if he’s hiding his disappointment.

“C’mon,” he chuckles “You think I haven’t noticed how much you don’t like this job?”

Feeling like a kid caught with her hands in a cookie jar, she surrenders “Working at the BAU was incredibly tough. I was away all the time, handling horrible cases and seeing people facing the worst moment of their lives. Sometimes I wished I wasn’t there…”

“But?” he prompts.

“But it had a meaning” she looks at him, desperate. “We were helping people. People with faces, names, stories. We knew that as much as annihilating as the job could be at times, we were doing some good, making things go according to justice”

“And you don’t feel the same at the Pentagon…” he encourages her, pulling an arm around her shoulders.

“I’m part of a chain of command I ignore the most part of, and when they give me some more information, I worry whether I’m standing on the right side,” she tries to explain.

Will nods pensively, “Why didn’t you tell me before that you were so unhappy?”

“Because 99 percent of what I do is classified. And it wouldn’t have changed things anyway, then.” she argues.

“But now it’s different..”

“Now, there might be a chance for me to go back to the BAU” she looks right in his eyes.

“I see.”

“Will, it’s not something we have to decide now…” she explains.

“I’ll be by your side anyway” he smiles, “I want you to be happy JJ. And I miss your smile” he kisses her forehead and bids her goodnight, heading to their bedroom.

 

JJ sits still for a while, in the dark room; she likes to imagine her life as a house with solid foundations, the way you lay each brick influencing the whole structure. When she was still working at the BAU, she would come back home at the end of a case with some memories impressed in her mind; the smile of a child, the hug of a mother who found her daughter still alive, the sober goodbye of a torn family that finally found closure. That was a good way to build her house.

Now the secrets she has to keep, the art of deception she had to learn, the versicolored nature of truth, make her feel like she’s groping her way through a dark maze. She definitely doesn’t like what she’s building here.

 

Her thoughts slowly start to become hazy, her limbs so heavy, no way she’s going to make it to the bedroom, she thinks. It’s a matter of seconds before she’s out.

It’s a cold sunny morning, a thin layer of frost covers the roads, people hurriedly walk through the streets, bracing themselves through their coats, and rows of parked cars are completely covered with ice.

She’s standing on the sidewalk, waiting for the green light to cross the street. Everything is so still. The street is completely empty; not a car passing by, not a police officer, not a sound. It’s like as if all of a sudden everyone just vanished and the city has been left lying silent as the bleached wreck of a dead whale.

Only then she notices a woman waiting on the opposite side of the road with her kid. He looks five or so and he must have just said something funny because the two can’t stop giggling. The woman smiles at her son and ruffles his blonde hair. Finally the green light comes and the two women start crossing the street in opposite directions.

JJ doesn’t see where the car is coming from; she just notices a black shadow skidding and stopping inches away from them. A man in a black hood comes out, armed.

Then everything happens so fast and so painfully slowly at the same time.

He extends an arm and points the gun. She tries to yell at the woman, but no sound comes out of her mouth. Then the deafening noise. A button flips in the air off the woman’s coat and what seems to be to be ages later it lands on the ground, besides her lifeless body.

Her son stands beside her and can’t stop crying.

Then the man who fired, walks toward the woman and checks her pulse.

Once he realizes his work is done, he turns toward JJ. She can swear he’s grinning at her through the fabric of the hood. He lifts a finger and poses it on his mouth, bidding her to silence. Then he goes back to his car, and drives away.

JJ wants to grab a phone and call the police. She wants to run toward the woman and check her vitals. She wants to take that kid into her arms and soothe his cry. She wants to get that son of a bitch and see his face, before shoving him in a jail for the rest of his life. But none of these things is an option; she’s frozen, immobilized. Her mind is present and reactive, but her body is like a splinted bone.

 

She wakes up with her fists clenched and her limbs sore with spasms. She doesn’t think a minute and goes to check on Henry. Once she has made sure he’s fine, she grabs the car keys and heads straight to the car.

 

The BAU is half empty when she comes in. As she silently glides through the familiar corridors and sits down waiting patiently, a rising tension gets to her guts. She’s frantically recalling particulars from her dream as if she had to report them to the detective in charge of the investigation. Except that there is no investigation, because there is no crime. _It was just a dream_. Finally a door opens and brings her back to the present.

 

“We said we needed to talk,” Rossi smoothly comments, feigning his surprise when he finds her in his office “but at 2 a.m?”

“I saw the lights were on” she smirks.

“And you couldn’t sleep,” he carries on

Well, let’s not get into it, she thinks.

“Which tells me you’ve given some thought to what we discussed,” Rossi concludes.

“I’ve never stopped thinking about it,” she admits.

“So?”

“I’m coming back”

 


End file.
